Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. Flexible and made to last.

Meet the Other Phone.
Flexible and made to last.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
Higher education

Talk to other parents whose children are preparing for university on our Higher Education forum.

Original poster

Daughter accused of collusion

101 replies

Iamsodonewith2020 · 16/07/2021 05:11

Daughter received end of year results and got a first in everything except one grade which was 0. She queried it and was told she was being investigated as the marking software had detected plagiarism. Fast forward a month and she has been called to a official hearing and is being accused of collusion. The evidence they have given is that another student on the course handed in identical project inc spelling mistakes! She is a first level student and hasn’t a clue what to do next as she definitely did the work but how does she prove it’s hers and she didn’t give it to someone else ( this is what is being implied)

OP posts:
NotInGuatemalaNowDrRopata · 16/07/2021 05:15

If she did the work, then hopefully she'll have evidence on her computer. Does she have any written notes from when she was drafting?

orangejuicer · 16/07/2021 05:16

Is there any chance she used a website to help with her work and bought an essay? If so, could be the same thing as cases are on the rise.

Suggest she gets in touch with her SU quick smart.

Seesawmummadaw · 16/07/2021 05:17

If the work was identical including spelling mistakes surely it’s easy to see who regularly spells the same words wrong?

Original poster
Iamsodonewith2020 · 16/07/2021 05:19

NotinGuatemala. She is a computer science student so no notes, just working through code

OP posts:
Original poster
Iamsodonewith2020 · 16/07/2021 05:22

Oranhejuicer not at all. As a first level student why would she? It was meant to be independent work. Only person she discussed it with was flatmate doing different project

OP posts:
Original poster
Iamsodonewith2020 · 16/07/2021 05:27

It’s her being accused of giving the work to someone else that she is not sure how to prove. Apparently quite common for Hugh level students to sell their work. She hasn’t done this. She has access to money and is on placement year now earning over £20k a year so no worries there

OP posts:
orangejuicer · 16/07/2021 05:28

@Iamsodonewith2020

Oranhejuicer not at all. As a first level student why would she? It was meant to be independent work. Only person she discussed it with was flatmate doing different project
It was a long shot but still could happen.

Presumably she can show her workings and prove it's her own work, in which case she should be fine.

ErrolTheDragon · 16/07/2021 05:54

So does she think her computer (or source repository) has been hacked or the other person stolen her work by some other means? Does anyone else have access to her computer/files?

HollowTalk · 16/07/2021 05:56

Does she know the other student? Have they told her who it is?

ItsVousNotMoi · 16/07/2021 05:56

Is the other person also being investigated

Bobbots · 16/07/2021 06:00

Sometimes high level students do share their work with others. Sometimes they are doing it to be nice but they are a bit naive and don’t think anyone would copy them but they do. Sometimes they are doing it to try and get other people to like them (occasionally other students know who are the “clever ones” in the class and they try to take advantage of that especially if those students seem lonely or under confident).

Sometimes they collide with others on work even if they are very capable of doing well on it by themselves but they just lack confidence and are anxious about getting a high grade.

It’s often much more complicated than you would think

PaulaTrilloe · 16/07/2021 06:04

Someone stole my (paper) essay from lecturers pigeonhole, copied it as their own work and put mine back in late so it looked like I'd copied them!. The person also stole library books or cut out pages so we couldn't access. I was able to prove I was the author because of an obscure provable reference. Clearly had issues and got expelled!

Bobbots · 16/07/2021 06:08

Sorry the point I was trying to make is that they should still investigate your daughter even though she is a high level student. Not just look at her grades and assume that because she gets firsts that she would never collude with someone. It’s just due diligence.

In cases where both students are maintaining that the work is theirs alone and they haven’t colluded at all we sometimes interview them about the content to try to see who actually understands the work. So if something has happened whereby hers was stolen and she has actually done the work herself hopefully this will come out in the forthcoming investigations and it will be evident that the other student doesn’t really know what they have written about.

caughtinanet · 16/07/2021 06:33

I'm not an expert but if theory is these including mistakes isn't the most likely scenario that it's been taken electronically in which case wouldn't there be a trail? A thorough interview of both students should give a good idea which one originated the work

GetTaeFuck · 16/07/2021 06:38

I went through this last year, (I’m a mature student) however it wasn’t collusion it was plagiarism.

In my sleep deprived state I hadn’t paraphrased properly.

Tell your DD to speak to her Student Union. They know the system inside out and were a massive help to me.

I got a slap on the wrist, given a 0 for that part of the exam and had to retake it with the mark capped at a 3:3.

They knew I hadn’t cheated on purpose because my scores were always 1:1 so I didn’t “need” to cheat and they accepted that I was an old person with children who were ill and kept me up all night multiple times during the exam period (and also it was the first Covid lockdown so I couldn’t call in reinforcements via friends so I could nap during the day/do my exam in peace).

GnomeDePlume · 16/07/2021 06:40

Horrible experience for your DD. Re the spelling mistakes, surely the course leaders will be able to identify if these spelling mistakes are common to both students?

Firstly can your DD establish that she is the 'owner' of the work. Does your DD have earlier versions so that she can show the development of the work? You said the project is a coding one. Have they both used a very standard approach to solving the problem?

My final year dissertation was investigated as it was believed that I must have copied it from somewhere (though no source was ever identified). I hadnt, I had just put my heart and soul into it. I ended up with it marked down with no justification other than 'they had their doubts'. 35 years later I'm still bitter!

DonLewis · 16/07/2021 06:45

I have had to put forward 2 of my students for suspected collusion. I am pretty sure I know which way round the collusion happened, but I am not allowed to make that call it has to go to the Academic Conduct Officer for them to sort out. I can't even tell the ACO what I think. All I do is put both submissions forward, highlighting the similarities.

My advice? Make sure your daughter tells the truth, see if there's anyway of proving it is her work (previous drafts, internet history, anything at all that could help and pull it together in a file) and that she replies to everything on time.

It must be a horrible feeling. I feel terrible for my student who's work has been copied, but I have to follow the rules.

OhEff · 16/07/2021 06:47

Presumably, if she is truly innocent and hasn't willing shown the other student her work she's been hacked, highly possible if studying computer science. This could have been done remotely or with a thumb drive if she left her laptop open in the library to pop to the loo.

If she can't trace a hacking trail her saving grace will be referencing or coding style.. coders all have their little styles, like hand writing. If she can compare it with her previous work she could potentially prove herself innocent. A Coder good enough to teach at university level should be able to differentiate stylistics of an individual coder.

I was accused of plagiarism at uni. I knew who did it, and thankfully my lecturer knew they were guilty because they knew my style of writing. It still dented my confidence though.

ErrolTheDragon · 16/07/2021 06:49

Firstly can your DD establish that she is the 'owner' of the work. Does your DD have earlier versions so that she can show the development of the work? You said the project is a coding one. Have they both used a very standard approach to solving the problem?

Unfortunately, that may not help much if the accusation is that she's given it to another student.
If she hasn't, then what the op describes is data theft by some means. I don't know how this could be proved, but working out if anyone could have had access might be a start

AlwaysColdHands · 16/07/2021 07:02

As pp said, her student union will be able to advise her, and she should be able to take a union representative with her to any meetings/ hearings.

KihoBebiluPute · 16/07/2021 07:22

The most probable explanation is that the other student hacked your daughter's account, or that she left a machine unlocked in an accessible area and someone saved the file from there.

She should definitely involve the SU rep and should strongly assert her innocence and insist on clarity on what the procedure is to allow her a fair chance to establish that the work is her own. A viva interview of both students who handed in the identical work ought to be able to quickly establish who actually wrote it in the first place.

wjg65ka · 16/07/2021 07:30

@Iamsodonewith2020 this is happening to me. I passed the assignment but the similarity report flagged up plagiarism and I'm being investigated. My tutor says it's because rather than paraphrase, I've just direct quotes from the article I was studying. It's down to my poor referencing.

She thinks the outcome will be a recommendation to work on my referencing and paraphrasing, it was a common theme amongst the course unfortunately. We didn't have a very supportive module leader which lead to this happening quite a lot. I'm first year, I've never done anything academic based.

They will offer as much support as they can, as long as DD can show that she didn't directly plagerise and can explain what's happened

wjg65ka · 16/07/2021 07:31

Just noticed it flagged up to another student work, so very different from my scenario but I hope everything turns out okay x

Original poster
Iamsodonewith2020 · 16/07/2021 07:50

Thank you all. She has done some digging and has worked out one if only 2 people it can be and one of those is a retaking the year and all their exams this summer are being re-sat so she is pretty certain it’s probably them but she only knows their name but doesn’t recognise the name. She has no idea who they are and due to all work being online hasn’t been into campus since March 2020 so has no idea what they even look like.

OP posts:
Velvian · 16/07/2021 07:53

If your DD only has the final saved versions of the file, you can right click on the file (before you open it) to see previous versions of the original file.